Writing is the same as music. It’s in how you phrase it, how you hold back the note, bend it, shape it, then release it. And what you don’t play is as important as what you do say.
Interpretation
Writing, like music, involves nuanced expression where both what is included and omitted carry significance.
This quote by Robert Creeley suggests that the art of writing is akin to the art of music, emphasizing the importance of phrasing and the careful selection of words. Just as musicians manipulate notes to create emotion and meaning, writers must consider how they express their thoughts, highlighting the crucial role of silence or omission in conveying a message effectively.
In practice
This quote can be used in a writing workshop to inspire participants to think about their word choices.
I did however used to think, you know, in the woods walking, and as a kid playing in the woods, that there was a kind of immanence there — that woods, and places of that order, had a sense, a kind of presence, that you could feel; that there was something peculiarly, physically present, a feeling of place almost conscious ... like God. It evoked that.
Moon, moon, when you leave me alone all the darkness is an utter blackness, a pit of fear, a stench, hands unreasonable never to touch. But I love you. Do you love me. What to say when you see me.
Well, in the '80s and '70s, with the exception of Sidney Poitier and Brock Peters, maybe Ivan Dixon, if you were as big and black as I am, you were a bad guy. Simple. Because in real life, I scare people.
The theater requires an essential gullibility that you can't get through life without having. If all you can feel is skepticism-well , you meet people like this. Run away from them. They're not good people.
I do not deny that I have made drawings and watercolors of an erotic nature. But they are always works of art. Are there no artists who have done erotic pictures?
Drawing includes three and a half quarters of the content of painting... Drawing contains everything, except the hue
Oh literature, oh the glorious Art, how it preys upon the marrow in our bones. It scoops the stuffing out of us, and chucks us aside. Alas!
The whole world of publishing is moving to electronic, but when you put a poem on a screen and you increase the type size, the shape of a poem changes.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.